RAP PUBLICATION 2006/12

The history of industrial

marine fisheries in
Southeast Asia
 RAP PUBLICATION 2006/12

The history of industrial marine fisheries in

Southeast Asia

by

Gary R. Morgan
and
Derek J. Staples

FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS

REGIONAL OFFICE FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
Bangkok, 2006

i
 The designation and presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any
opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations concerning
the legal status of any country, territory, city or area of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its
frontiers and boundaries.

FAO 2006

NOTICE OF COPYRIGHT

All rights reserved. Reproduction and dissemination of material in this information product for educational
or other non-commercial purposes are authorized without any prior written permission from the copyright
holders provided the source is fully acknowledged. Reproduction of material in this information product
for sale or other commercial purposes is prohibited without written permission of the copyright holders.
Applications for such permission should be addressed to the Senior Fishery Officer, FAO Regional Office
for Asia and the Pacific, Maliwan Mansion, 39 Phra Athit Road, Bangkok 10200, Thailand.

For copies write to: The Senior Fishery Officer

FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
Maliwan Mansion, 39 Phra Athit Road
Bangkok 10200
THAILAND
Tel: (+66) 2 697 4000
Fax: (+66) 2 697 4445
E-mail: FAO-RAP@fao.org

ii
 FOREWORD

Introduction of industrial fishing and more effective fishing technologies resulted in extremely
rapid growth in production from wild marine fish stocks in the Southeast Asia region. This has
been achieved by a process of sequentially depleting wild fish stocks within an essentially
unregulated management environment so that fleets moved from one target species to another
and from one area to another to sustain landings.

However, this process has now run its course because there are virtually no new unexploited fish
stocks or areas remaining that fishing fleets can move to, despite recent trends of offshore fishing
fleets of the region moving into the Pacific and Indian Oceans to fish for highly migratory
species such as tuna.

This report provides a fascinating account of the rise and fall of different types of industrial
fishing in Southeast Asia, starting with pearling and moving through phases that included trawling,
purse seining, drift netting, trolling and more recently tuna longlining/poling/purse seining. This
historic account of the boom and bust activities of industrial fishing highlights the need for
a thorough overhaul of existing fisheries policies in the region and a move towards much more
sustainable development.

He Changchui
Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative
FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific

iii
 Table of Contents
Page

Foreword ................................................................................................................................. iii

Executive summary ................................................................................................................ vii
I. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1
II. Pearling ...................................................................................................................... 3
III. Trawling ..................................................................................................................... 5
IV. Push netting ............................................................................................................... 11
V. Purse seining ............................................................................................................. 13
VI. Shrimp trawling ........................................................................................................ 17
VII. Tuna longlining, poling and purse seining ............................................................ 19
VIII. Driftnetting ................................................................................................................ 22
IX. Trolling ....................................................................................................................... 24
X. Other industrial fishing operations, including failed types of industrial
fishing ......................................................................................................................... 25
XI. Conclusions ................................................................................................................ 26
XII. References .................................................................................................................. 27

v
 Executive summary

Using the information in Butcher (2004)1 and other sources, a review of the history of development
of the major industrial marine fisheries in Southeast Asia has been undertaken. The production
methods and fisheries considered were: (a) pearling; (b) trawling; (c) purse seining; (d) shrimp
trawling; (e) tuna longlining, poling and purse seining; (f) driftnetting; (g) trolling; and (h) other
industrial fishing operations, including failed types of industrial fishing. For each of these
production methods and fisheries, the main features of the history of development from about
1850 to the present day are highlighted with some commentary on their current status.

In examining the history of fisheries development, the common feature is that of a boom-and-
bust development where, one by one, stocks and habitats were exploited by new or improved
fishing techniques to supply a rapidly increasing regional population and developing export
markets. In all areas, this exploitation was done in an often uncontrolled, unregulated manner.
When stocks were depleted by these new fishing methods, fleets moved on to the next area or
stock. This sequential plunder also occurred across fisheres as the declining economic performance
of one fishery spurred the transfer of vessels and fishers to a new, developing fishery (very often
with government assistance) which in its turn also declined.

For example, trawling began with sailed-powered beam trawlers operated by Japanese fishers in
the early 1990s. With the change to diesel-powered vessels in the 1930s, concerns about the
status of stocks were already being made and the fleet expanded into other trawl grounds in the
Philippines. Japanese fleets were also active in waters around Taiwan Province of China, the
South China Sea and the Tonkin Gulf off Viet Nam. The trawling technology was exported from
the Philippines to Thailand by a joint Thai-German Government initiative in the early 1960s.
This was so successful that soon demersal stocks in the Gulf of Thailand were under pressure
and this led to an expansion of the fleets fishing activities to other areas in the region. This
expansion of the Thai trawlers to other areas also prompted parallel industrial-scale developments
in other countries, most notably Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula. This expansion has been
characterized by often violent conflicts with small-scale fishers in a number of areas.

However, soon demersal catch rates were in decline in most areas and there were few if any new
areas into which demersal trawling activities could be expanded and, by the 1970s, Thai vessels
were being converted to (and being built for) purse seining to take small pelagic species in the
Gulf of Thailand. There, the landings of these species increased by more than eight times in the
first few years of the 1970s. However, like the development of trawling, both in Thailand and
elsewhere, the expansion into purse seining in the region was essentially unregulated and it was
not long before the small pelagic species being targeted were being either overexploited or had
suffered significant price declines as a result of oversupply. By the early 1970s, this expansion of
the industrialized purse seine fishery had been so dramatic that it was the dominant form of
fishing in several countries, including Indonesia and the Philippines.

Declines in catch rates and also of prices of small pelagic species prompted further development
and expansion, this time into tuna purse seining in the late 1970s to supply the newly-evolving
regional tuna cannery capacity, most particularly that in Thailand. Tuna fishing throughout the
region has since expanded in the now-familiar pattern and, by 1991, the vast majority of tuna
supplied to Thai canneries came from the activities of purse seiners in the waters of other

1
Butcher, John G. 2004. The Closing of the Frontier: A History of the marine fisheries of Southeast Asia c.1850-2000.
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore, 442 pp.

vii
countries of the region. However, again concerns are now being expressed about the status of
some regional tuna stocks.

The point was therefore reached more than a decade ago where there were very few new,
underexploited areas for fleets to move to within the region and very few new types of fisheries
or species that fleets could transfer to, and this remains the situation today.

The challenge for the countries of the region in the future is, therefore, for the first time to
manage existing fisheries resources and their fisheries for long-term sustainability. This will
require not only the introduction of enforceable management measures but a restructuring of the
industry to address current overexploitation, greatly enhanced regional cooperation in fisheries
enforcement, data collection and research and, most importantly, a vast improvement in the
quality and quantity of regional and national fisheries statistics upon which informed management
and development decisions can be made.

viii
I. Introduction
This summary of the history of marine fisheries in Southeast Asia traces the development of
fisheries in the region from basically subsistence activities in the nineteenth century to large-scale
industrial fishing in the latter part of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and examines
the impact that this development has had on fish stocks and fishing communities in the region.
The work is based substantially on the comprehensive review by Butcher (2004) although other
sources have also been used as appropriate. Units of measurement have, where possible, been
standardized to metric units to facilitate comparisons with current and other data, although
Butchers (2004) units for weights and measures of measurement are already quoted in metric
units except where other units are referred to in a statute, law or other legal instrument. However,
there are instances, particularly for the measurement of vessel tonnage, where such standardization
has not been possible and these instances are highlighted and discussed as they occur.

The geographical area covered by this history is shown in Figure 1 and includes all of the
countries of Southeast Asia, excluding China to the north and Australia to the south. The time
period covered is approximately from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day (2005).

Figure 1. Map of Southeast Asia showing the area and countries covered by this review

1
Although inland and estuarine fisheries are also important in Southeast Asia, the seas of the
region have been particularly important and have long provided people with a variety of fish,
shrimps, squids, whales, pearl oysters, sea cucumbers and a multitude of other animals that they
have collected and captured for medicine, oil, jewellery and most importantly food.

Prior to the early 1900s, the population of the whole of Southeast Asia was about 40 million with
the majority of that population living in villages. The countries of the area were not yet urbanized
to any great extent and therefore fishing (both marine and inland) was directed mainly at the
need to supply food for these village communities. There was some limited trade (often between
coastal and inland villages) and simple preservation and processing methods such as salting,
drying and the manufacture of fish sauce which were developed and used to facilitate this trade.
The supply of fresh, preserved or processed fish for large centralized markets, either domestic or
international, was largely unknown.

As a result of this subsistence fishing by coastal villages in the nineteenth century, the regions
marine fish stocks were almost certainly lightly exploited and, although no detailed surveys were
carried out until after 1945, several contemporary nineteenth century records comment on both
the quality and the abundance of fish in many areas and on the simple fishing methods used in
marine fisheries.

Restricted by the simple fishing gear and vessels, and with abundant coastal fish resources, most
fishing was undertaken in near-shore waters. When the demand for fish and other marine animals
rose or the supply fell (often as a result of natural causes, such as the monsoons), it was
a relatively simple matter to expand operations into new coastal fishing grounds since there were
very few barriers to such expansion.

As fishing moved away from a subsistence-level activity and became increasingly oriented
towards supplying more remote markets in the late 1800s and early 1900s, a spectacular growth
in catches occurred (Sugiyama et al., 2004). This expanding demand for marine products was
created above all else by urbanization and the growth in population but also by the development
of transport and marketing systems and changes in the techniques in preserving fish, shrimps and
other marine life that prompted people to produce for the market.

This expansion of marine production accelerated after the Second World War as fleets were
mechanized and fishing activities expanded to new areas, particularly those areas offshore that
had previously been unfished or, at least, only lightly exploited. Figure 2 shows the extent of this
increase in landings in the last half of the twentieth century and, particularly, how this expansion
in marine landings overwhelmed production from inland waters. The expansion of marine landings
in Southeast Asia has been so spectacular that two nations in the region (Thailand and Indonesia)
are now among the worlds top 10 fish producing nations and marine fisheries production accounts
for more than 1 percent of GDP in almost all countries of the region (Sugiyama et al., 2004,
Table 1).

With this expansion in landings through the twentieth century came an expansion in the areas
fished by national fishing fleets, a decline in the abundance of many fish stocks and, accordingly,
an increase in interest at the regional, national and international level, in administering, controlling
and regulating fishing activities in the region. States, and since the late 1940s, international
organizations have all influenced the scale and location of fishing in the region and, until
recently, fishing often took place beyond the reach and grasp of state powers.

The ability to expand landings by moving to new areas was curtailed in the latter part of the
twentieth century not only by the lack of new fishing grounds to move to but also very much by
this increasing interest of national Governments (and the legal obligations and powers conferred

2
 16 000

12 000

8 000

4 000

0
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Total production Inland Marine

* Excluding aquatic plants Unit: 1 000 tonnes

Figure 2. Chart showing the increase in production from marine

areas of Southeast Asia from 1950 to 2004

by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS) to control fishing activities, particularly
fishing by other nations fleets, within a nations territorial waters. Such recent attempts at
regulating fisheries have not been wholly successful since they are built on a long history of
a lack of government intervention and control in the marine fisheries sector. However, as Butcher
(2004) points out, the era of opening of new frontiers of fisheries has ended. The challenge now
is to exploit the seas in a sustainable manner that preserves the diversity of marine life while
providing the people of the region with a source of food long into the future.

In examining how the various sectors of marine fisheries in Southeast Asia have developed since
the nineteenth century and how they have contributed to the overall rapid expansion of landings,
the individual components that comprise the regions marine fisheries sector will be examined.
These components include: (a) pearling; (b) trawling; (c) purse seining; (d) shrimp trawling;
(e) tuna longlining, poling and purse seining; (f) driftnetting; (g) trolling; and (h) other industrial
fishing operations, including failed types of industrial fishing.

In addition, the current state of each of these sectors and the resources upon which they rely will
be examined so that an assessment can be made for each sector of the likelihood of being able to
move from an expansionist mode of fishing (where landings were increased by exploiting new
areas) to one of sustainability, based on existing resources.

II. Pearling
In the nineteenth century, prior to the development of the cultured pearl industry in Japan,
mother of pearl shells and pearls were some of the most valuable marine animal products of the
time, and the demand for these products had been increasing rapidly in Europe and North
America. In Southeast Asia, there was a thriving pearl shell and pearl industry in the early 1800s,
based in the islands surrounding the Sulu and Celebes Seas which sold or bartered its products to
China. So great was this trade that providing sufficient labour was a problem and therefore slave
raiders were employed to capture slaves in the islands and coastal villages of the Malay Peninsula
and bring them to Manila and Jolo. At the height of the trade in the 1830s, as many as
68 000 people were employed in diving for pearl shell in the area, more than the number of
fishers in the whole of Java and Madura. About 730 tonnes of pearl shell was exported from Jolo

3
each year. The pearl shell and pearls that were not exported directly to China (either by Chinese
traders or by British East India Company vessels) were sent to the market at Makassar for sale.

The pearling areas around the Sulu and Celebes Seas, the majority of which is now encompassed
within the Philippines, is still by far the major producer of pearl shell and pearls (as opposed to
pearls from the pearl culture industry) in the region with pearl shell production in 2002 being
about 25000 tonnes or over 99 percent of total production in the region (F AO, 2004). This
production is, however, about the same level as the 1960s although landings have fluctuated
considerably during that time.

The early, rapid development of the pearl shell and pearl industry in the eastern islands area
(which almost exclusively used Japanese and Filipino divers) quickly resulted in the more easily
accessible stocks coming under pressure and, as pearl stocks in shallower waters were intensively
harvested, it became necessary to find ways to harvest in deeper waters to maintain and increase
supplies. In 1839 Augustus Siebe developed diving gear which was eagerly adapted by companies
with sufficient capital to purchase the necessary equipment. The addition of diving equipment
not only enabled divers to reach greater depths (up to approximately 54 m) than had previously
been possible with free-diving, but also to increase the proportion of the year in which it was
possible to collect oysters from three to nine months. The development also enabled stocks in
deeper waters to be exploited and, by the late 1800s, areas in the Aru Islands, the Mergui
Archipelago and the Sulu Archipelago were being fished. Faced with the high costs of the
pearling operations, pearlers generally adopted the strategy of extracting as much as possible as
quickly as possible and then moving on to another oyster bed. This strategy was adopted in all
three of the main pearling areas.

The first area where diving equipment resulted in an increase in yields was in the Mergui
Archipelago where, according to an official report by Rudmose Brown and Simpson in 1907,
there was no systematic pearling in the archipelago before 1891 when the attention of the
Government was drawn to these banks by a Queensland pearler [presumably from the Torres
Straits]. To manage this fishery, the Government of Burma immediately introduced a block
system whereby the government auctioned the rights to collect pearl oysters in five blocks
covering the richest pearling grounds. As a result of this system the mentality was adopted that it
was imperative to extract as much pearl shell as possible during the year as the same company
would not necessarily secure the same block the following year. Official figures indicate that
yields rose dramatically from 26 tonnes in 1891/92 to 340 tonnes in 1894/95, leading to the
emergence of Mergui as a boomtown. By 1900/01 the yield had fallen to 66 tonnes, and the
government abolished the block system and replaced it by a system under which pearlers bought
a licence for each pump they used. There was apparently no limit on the number of licences used.

During this period the accepted view was that there was little danger of overexploitation of the
Mergui pearl beds as the beds were continually restocked by the offspring produced by oysters in
deeper waters beyond the reach of the divers. It was argued that there was a natural balance
between the number of divers and the quantity of shell available for, as yields fell, divers would
leave and the stocks would recover. As a result it was concluded there was no need for any sort
of regulation of the Mergui pearl fishery.

Pearling also expanded into the Aru Islands where Australian pearlers, using Japanese and Filipino
divers, adopted diving gear in the 1870s. The richest grounds were those along the eastern side
of the Islands which, after a few failed attempts at development, were developed by the Australian
pearlers from Torres Strait in 1905, under a three-year concession granted by the Netherlands
Indies Government. These grounds had hardly been touched by divers and, initially, catches were
about twice what they were in the Torres Straits. In addition, the operations were significantly

4
more profitable because licence costs, labour and the cost of living were cheaper than in the
Torres Straits fishery.

This Aru Island fishery quickly expanded and by 1906 there were 150 vessels working in the
area, operating as a fleet with multiple diving vessels supplying a schooner which acted as
a floating station where sorting, cleaning and packing was undertaken. In 1906, indigenous
divers in the area (who, under the terms of the concession, had exclusive access to pearl shell in
waters less than 5 fathoms) supplied only 13 percent of the total 950 tonnes that were taken in
the area. The company operating the fleet was the worlds largest producer of pearl shell and, in
the same year, supplied 37 percent of mother-of-pearl shell imported into London.

However, within a few years, yields began to decline as the three year concession provided no
long-term incentives for preservation of the stock and contemporary anecdotal evidence appears
to indicate a reduction in catch rates per vessel of about 50 percent between 1905 and 1908.
Although the concession was actually renewed several times, the company operating the fleet
had withdrawn most or all of its vessels by 1916. However, this withdrawal did not end pearling
activities in the Islands with the indigenous, shallow water fishery continuing and a few diving
vessels operating well into the 1930s. These activities continue today from smaller, motorized
vessels.

In the Sulu Archipelago, the introduction of diving technology came later and in a milder form
than in other areas and, in 1914, there were 73 pearling vessels operating there, 40 of which were
owned by a Japanese company and the rest by individuals of various ethnicities. Only two of the
Japanese vessels had motor-driven pumps for diving. By 1930, there were only 24 vessels
operating, five of which were equipped with engines and moto-driven air pumps. The Sulu
Archipelago area appears to have exported about 300 tonnes of pearl shell in 1914 and, throughout
its development, was distinguished by a greater reliance on indigenous fishers operating in
shallow water for most of its production. Yields do not appear to have declined as precipitously
as other areas where mechanized diving operations were more important, and Butcher (2004)
suggests that this may have been a result of the more extensive nature of the pearl beds and the
apparently less intense exploitation.

The introduction of mechanical diving technology in the late nineteenth century therefore led to
a boom-and-bust development of the pearl shell beds of the region with pearl beds being
sequentially depleted. Throughout this period of development, however, it is interesting to note
that little concern was expressed for the long-term sustainability of the stocks since it was
commonly believed that depleted adult stocks would be quickly replenished from untouched
deeper water stocks. The decline in abundance of pearl shell helped drive an increasing demand
for trochus shell and other gastropods as a substitute for pearl shell which was used in the
manufacture of buttons. But, after the Second World War, it was the development of cheap
plastic substitutes for button manufacture that resulted in the decline of the industry although it
continues today as a small, artisanal fishery in the Philippines.

III. Trawling
Mechanized trawling requires a vessel that is powerful enough to tow a large net through the
water at a reasonable speed (typically 2-4 knots) and therefore the development of trawling did
not generally take place until after the development of steam-powered vessels in the latter part of
the nineteenth century, although a limited amount of beam trawling using sail-powered vessels
was undertaken, including that by Japanese fishers in Manila Bay. It was at this time that the
first industrialization of fisheries began in the British Isles. At first, steam-powered vessels
were used to tow fishing boats out to fishing grounds and take catches to markets, but later the

5
power of steam engines was harnessed to drive fishing boats and haul in nets. The most important
fishing gear at this time was the trawl net, which fishers employed to capture the abundant
demersal populations of the English channel and then of the North Sea. As the fishery expanded
the beam trawl, which is kept open by a beam at the entrance to the net, was quickly replaced by
the otter trawl, which is kept open by the flow of water over the otter boards (or doors) on the
tow lines as the boat pulls the net through the water. In the late 1800s British trawlers moved
further and further into the North Sea to maintain their catches, but fishing companies made
great profits, as the income from the sale of fish to the rapidly growing market far outweighed
the cost of sailing to more distant fishing grounds.

The profitability of steam trawlers and their ability to land large amounts of food to feed the
growing urban populations of Europe planted the idea in the minds of a few entrepreneurs and
officials that trawling might prove just as successful in the Southeast Asian waters. The first
person to consider the possibility of capturing demersal fish in Southeast Asian waters by means
of a trawler was apparently a Captain Eddie, the captain of a steamship. During discussions with
British officials in 1894 Captain Eddie proposed that he be granted a monopoly on trawling in
the waters around Penang and off the coasts of Perak and Selangor for two to four years and that
he would pay the government a certain sum for the privilege. Eddie had experimented with
a trawl net and had apparently had very good results, but he dumped his catch before returning to
port and said he would not reveal where he had fished or what he had caught or order a steam
trawler from England until the Government agreed to his request. The areas for which he had
requested to be granted a monopoly had great potential for trawl fishing, but because they had so
little information to go on and they were in any case reluctant to grant a monopoly, officials
refused Eddies request and no one took up his idea of trawling in this area for many years.

The design of trawl nets in Southeast Asia may have some precedence in the fixed nets, known
as payang, that were used off the coasts of Java and Madura and the Malay Peninsula in the
nineteenth century to catch small and medium-sized pelagic fish. These nets were similar in
design to a trawl net, with wings and a cod end and the upper part of the net supported
by floats and the lower edge secured with weights. Similarly, fishers in the Philippines used
a pair-trawl type net design, locally known as sapyaw, to also catch pelagic species. These nets,
however, were not towed nets but fixed or lift nets. Therefore, perhaps their greatest importance
in the development of trawling that was to come in the future was to provide the net making
skills and familiar net patterns for manufacturing towed trawl nets.

The first attempt in the region at surveying demersal fish stocks and testing demersal trawling as
a method of capture was made in 1907 when the Netherlands Indies Government refitted
a steam barge, the Gier, to undertake surveys in the Java Sea and nearby areas using a small otter
trawl. The trials that were undertaken were hampered by operational difficulties such as the net
often becoming stuck in the soft mud and large cup sponges clogging the net. Despite these
difficulties, some areas with good potential were identified by the end of the trials in 1911 and
the conclusions of the survey were generally optimistic. In the report to the Government, which
recommended a more commercially-orientated survey, it was emphasized that the Gier was not
designed as a trawler since it used a small net and the vessel concentrated on surveying a number
of areas rather than concentrating on the areas that were found to have high fish abundance.
Despite these recommendations, no follow-up surveys were undertaken and, in fact, the
Government actually reduced its commitment to fisheries surveys and research.

Other similar trawl surveys were being undertaken at about the same time, including the Golden
Crown, which surveyed the Arakan coast of Burma in 190809 and later, under new ownership,
surveyed the waters off the Straits Settlements, the Albatross, a steam beam trawler belonging to
the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, which surveyed demersal resources in the Philippines in 190708

6
and the steam trawler Tongkol, which surveyed possible trawling grounds in the Straits of Malacca
and the South China Sea in 192627. None of these surveys proved encouraging enough for
further surveys or commercialization to be undertaken although, interestingly, all suggested that
the use of otter trawls and other modern fishing methods operated from small motor trawlers in
inshore areas and landing on a daily basis may have some potential rather than the larger,
European-type trawlers in offshore areas. This recommendation had a cultural and commercial
focus as well as being a response to the abundance of fish found. Local markets preferred their
fish fresh rather than frozen and prices in local markets were not high, which made it difficult to
operate large trawlers profitably.

As noted earlier, Japanese fishers had been operating beam trawls from sail-powered vessels in
Manila Bay since about 1900 and, in the late 1920s, this fishery began to expand as the fishing
companies operating there introduced diesel-powered vessels. By the early 1930s, virtually all of
the beam trawlers had diesel engines and the trawlers had extended their operations well beyond
Manila Bay. This expansion of activities prompted one of the first suggestions that trawling was
adversely affecting other fisheries when Filipino fishers in San Miguel Bay complained to the
President of the Philippines that the Japanese trawlers were reducing fish stocks, a claim that was
supported by subsequent research. However, trawling activities in San Miguel Bay continued
and, by 1980, 89 trawlers of various sizes were operating there. However, by this time, demersal
stocks in the area, and other trawl grounds in the Philippines, had been depleted (in 1980,
estimates of trawlable biomass in San Miguel Bay were only 1600 tonnes, about 20 percent of
what the estimate was in 1948) and trawl operations had become economically marginal. No
further significant growth of the industrial trawl fishery therefore occurred although trawling
from dugouts, using very small nets, expanded gradually from the 1950s onwards and helped in
maintaining a small trawl fishery for demersal species in the Philippines, which continues today.

Japanese fishing companies were also active in developing offshore pair- and otter-trawl fisheries
in the 1930s in other areas of Southeast Asia, particularly in the waters around Taiwan, the South
China Sea and off the coast of Viet Nam, including the Gulf of Tonkin where between 1935 and
1937 these trawlers caught an average of 11000 tonnes per year , mainly of species such as
yellowback bream (Taius tumifrons) and other bream species. In addition, Japanese trawlers
operated as far south as Sarawak and were also based in Singapore, apparently fishing in areas as
far south as the northwest coast of Australia.

In contrast to most other fishing activities in the region at the time, these Japanese trawlers did
not land their catches in the countries where they were taken but, rather, landed the frozen
product to markets in Japan and Taiwan. These Japanese trawlers, together with Japanese operations
in the Philippines constituted, therefore, the main trawling activities in Southeast Asia by the late
1930s since none of the surveys by European Governments or entrepreneurs had resulted in
a viable trawl fishery using European-type trawlers.

Following the Second World War, demersal fish landings in the region recovered quickly to
pre-war levels, despite the problems of the limited supply of vessels, fishing gear and other
equipment. By 1950, demersal fish landings had reached around 166000 tonnes (in addition to
some 43000 tonnes of shrimp) of which perhaps half came from trawling activities. These
landings then increased rapidly, reaching about 1.7 million tonnes by 2002 in addition to about
600000 tonnes of shrimp. Although data on landings by fishing methods has not been consistently
collected in the region, by far the majority of this increase in demersal landings has come from
the expansion of trawling activities for demersal fish species, with the rate of increase having
accelerated a little in the period after 1990 (Figure 3).

7
 2 500

2 000

1 500

1 000

500

0
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Grand Total Demersal marine fish Shrimp

Unit: 1 000 tonnes

Figure 3. Landings of demersal marine fish and shrimp species in Southeast

Asian countries, 19502002 (source: FAO Fisheries Statistics)

This increase in landings from trawling activities resulted from a number of developments in
different countries. Japanese pair-trawling expertise was used to successfully develop both fish
and shrimp trawl fisheries in the Gulf of Thailand in 1959 and, in 1961, a joint GermanThai
Government initiative to introduce small-scale, inshore trawling in Thailand was hugely successful
with the number of trawlers operating in Thailand increasing from 99 in 1960 to 2700 in 1966.
Catches from these vessels correspondingly increased from around 59 000 to 36 000 tonnes
(representing about 57 percent of total Thai landings and about 64 percent of total regional
demersal landings) during the same period. Interestingly, these large increases in landings,
particularly for species not suitable for human consumption (which represented about 40 percent
of total trawl landings), helped support and develop ancillary industries such as pelletized feed
and duck production. Without a market for these so called trash fish, the profitability of this
fledgling industry would have been a lot less than it otherwise was.

As the number of trawl vessels in the Gulf of Thailand increased rapidly and catch rates (and
profits) declined, the fleet looked for other opportunities. Thai trawlers moved further afield and,
by 1974, had begun fishing on the west coast of Viet Nam, Burma, Sarawak, the east coast of
Malaysia and Java. The number of Thai-registered trawlers continued to grow with the exploitation
of these new fishing grounds and, by 1977, had reached 6300 with landings from these vessels
totalling some 1.1 million tonnes.

The impact in the region of trawling by Thai vessels was profound. In Malaysia, despite
a government rejection in 1958 of trawling as a potential direction for the fishing industry,
trawling accounted for 48 percent of total landings of 440000 tonnes by 1974. The introduction
of inshore trawling as a fishing method in the Straits of Malacca occurred in the early 1960s and
was a direct result of the development and success of the Thai trawl industry although it is
uncertain whether the initial impetus was provided by Thai trawlers operating in Malay waters or
Malay operators visiting Thailand to learn trawling. As a result of this osmosis, the techniques
and net design for otter trawling used in the Straits of Malacca was identical to that developed by
the GermanThai fisheries project and used by the Thai vessels. The introduction of trawling to
the Straits of Malacca was, however, fraught with conflict and violence with other fishers,
particularly since the trawlers essentially ignored a ban on trawling operations within 12 miles of
the coast and in waters less than 15 fathoms.

8
As the industry followed the development pattern of the Thai trawl industry, and the fishery was
essentially unregulated, the number of vessels increased rapidly and catch rates declined. On the
east coast of the Malay Peninsula, catch rates fell from 520 to 160 kg/hour between 1970
and 1981 while in the northern part of the Straits of Malacca, catch rates fell from 130 to
55 kg/hour during the same period. In both areas, Thai trawlers as well as Malay vessels contributed
to the depletion of fish populations.

The success of the initial development of trawling in the Straits of Malacca prompted the
development in 1966, by Chinese fishers based in Bagan Si Api Api, of a similar trawl fishery on
the western shores of the Straits, in Indonesia. With supporting government investment incentives,
the industry expanded rapidly, driven by investment by Japanese fishing companies and, from
the start, targeted shrimp for the Japanese market (see Section V below) although significant
quantities of demersal fish were also taken. However, unlike Thailand, there was not an immediate
market for this trash fish and much of it was dumped at sea after sorting out the shrimp and
valuable edible fish species. In 1969, the Government stipulated that foreign companies operating
in the industry had to enter into a joint venture arrangement with local companies and, again, it
was the Japanese companies that provided the capital for these joint ventures with local companies
providing labour, capital and political connections. This development of a large trawl industry in
Indonesia had profoundly transformed the Indonesian fishing industry in a few years.

Supporting infrastructure of freezing and cold storage facilities, harbours etc. followed the
development of the fishery and, by the end of 1976, foreign investment in the Indonesian shrimp
fishery totalled US$46 million with 51 cold storage facilities being operational. Exports of
frozen shrimp increased from around 5600 tonnes in 1969 to over 35000 tonnes in 1979.

However, already by 197071, trawlers were having to move to new fishing grounds as catch
rates declined in areas such as the Straits of Malacca. In 1971, 50 trawlers moved from Sumatra
to the north coast of Java because of dwindling catch rates; trawlers moved for the first time to
the south coast of Irian Jaya and a Japanese company moved its entire operations to east
Kalimantan. Soon, however, these new areas also experienced dwindling catch rates: catch rates
in the Arafura Sea approximately halved between 1973 and 1976, and total landings decreased in
the area even though the number of trawlers had increased by over 30 percent. In 1980, it was
reported that the size of shrimp in the Straits of Malacca, south and east Kalimantan, Cilacap and
the Arafura Sea had decreased tremendously. By the late 1970s, there were no more new areas
to which the fleet could move and so, after reaching a peak of some 132000 tonnes in 1979, total
landings of shrimp from Indonesia began to decline, partly a result of a ban on large trawlers
implemented in 1980/81 (see below). It was to be another decade before Indonesian shrimp
landings again reached that level of production.

Impacts of the trawl fishery were also felt in the declining abundance of demersal fish species in
the areas where trawlers operated (particularly the Arafura Sea), made even more critical by the
common habit of dumping trash fish at sea rather than landing and utilizing them, as was the
case in Thailand. This led to several violent clashes between traditional fishers and trawlers and,
between 1964 and 1976, according to official records, 62 vessels were sunk and 34 fishers killed
in clashes between trawlers and inshore fishers.

In 1980, in response to these increasingly violent clashes and continuing complaints from inshore
fishers, industrialized trawling was banned in all waters surrounding Java and Bali and in 1981
this ban was extended to the waters surrounding Sumatra. Trawling was still permitted in other
areas, including the Arafura Sea where a requirement for the installation of by-catch reduction
devices was also implemented, although probably not effectively enforced. Both shrimp and fish
stocks recovered quickly as a result of the ban (the density of demersal fish in the Straits of

9
Malacca, for example, more than doubled from 1.2 tonnes/km2 to 3 tonnes//km2 between 1983
and 1985) and, with government assistance, small-scale fishers moved to fill the void left by the
trawlers. In some areas, the number of small motorized vessels more than doubled in the early
1980s and total shrimp landings rebounded to pre-1980 levels by the late 1980s.

However, the ban on industrialized trawling was, like regulations controlling mesh sizes etc. in
areas such as the Arafura Sea, never fully effective and, by the early 1990s, there was a resurgence
of trawling, with many vessels operating illegally and also many being licensed by local
authorities despite the supposed ban. In 1996, small-scale fishers in Jakarta claimed that more
than 200 industrialized trawlers were operating within a kilometre of the coast and, inevitably,
violent clashes between small-scale fishers and trawlers once again became common. By the
mid-to-late 1990s, the trawl ban had ceased to be effective (except in areas where small-scale
fishers were able to enforce it themselves by violence) and landings of shrimp and demersal fish
species again increased, reaching over 280000 tonnes by 2002.

In other countries of the region, as well as Indonesia, the declaration of national Exclusive
Economic Zones (EEZ) under the UN Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS) during the 1980s
had a profound impact on the development of trawling activities in the region. Much of the
waters that had previously been international waters (and in which Thai trawlers in particular had
operated) now came under the jurisdiction of one or other of the countries of the region. The
largest EEZs were those of the archipelago states of Indonesia and the Philippines. According to
UNCLOS, the fishing fleets of those countries which had traditionally fished in the EEZ of
another country should continue to be given access to those waters so long as the coastal state
lacked the capacity to exploit the fisheries resources within its EEZ.

This prompted a flurry of development of national fishing industries and the setting of conditions
for foreign access to demersal resources, particularly in those states such as Indonesia which had
a huge EEZ, and terms of access for foreign fishing vessels became a useful bargaining chip in
other diplomatic negotiations. These conditions often included a requirement to land the catch in
the coastal state (which impacted the reporting of national landings statistics), employment of
local labour and payment of access fees. However, in Indonesia, the enforcement of the conditions
of foreign vessel access was again difficult as local authorities issued permits and lacked the
required resources such as patrol vessels to effectively monitor foreign fishing activity.

Of the countries in the region, it was the Thai trawlers that had the capacity to fish extensively in
other countries EEZs and they continued to do this, often illegally, following the declaration of
EEZs. Thai vessels operating within the EEZ of other countries often simply entered the EEZ
without permission to seek fish. This led to numerous arrests of Thai trawlers in Viet Nam,
Burma, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia but these arrests were only a tiny proportion of the
Thai fleet which, in any case, had invested in faster vessels, detection equipment and weapons so
as to avoid arrest. Many violent clashes occurred between national fishers and Thai trawlers in
Burma, Viet Nam, Indonesia and other countries through the 1980s and 1990s in response to
these illegal activities. Catches were most often shipped directly to Thailand or other markets by
transport vessels and were not landed in the coastal state.

During the late 1990s, Thailand began to enter into joint venture arrangements with a few
countries to allow their fleet to operate legally in other countries EEZs. Such arrangements were
entered into with Indonesia and Myanmar within the region and with other countries around the
Indian Ocean rim. However, illegal fishing in foreign waters continued to be common and was
exacerbated by the inability of Thai authorities to control the number of vessels in its own
national waters, thereby providing incentives for these vessels to look further afield for their
catches.

10
Despite early attempts at developing a trawl industry in the first few decades of the twentieth
century, the history of industrialized trawling in Southeast Asia has therefore been one of
unregulated, sequential expansion beginning initially with the development of the Thai trawl
industry in the early 1960s. The successful expansion of the Thai trawlers to other areas within
the region prompted parallel industrial-scale developments in other countries, most notably
Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula although this expansion has been characterized by often
violent conflicts with small-scale fishers in a number of areas. Throughout its development,
landings of demersal fish and shrimp from industrial trawling activities have been dominated by
three countries: Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, with these countries contributing 73 percent
of total regional shrimp landings in 2002 and 80 percent of total regional demersal fish landings
(FAO, 2004).

As Butcher (2004) notes, the development of trawling in the region occurred by the sequential
exploitation of new areas with vessels maintaining and increasing landings by moving to new
areas as stocks were depleted. Such sequential depletion has also impacted significantly on
traditional fishers, often resulting in violent clashes as demersal stocks have, in many areas, been
effectively transferred from small-scale fishers to the industrial trawl fleet. Attempts at regulating
and controlling this industrial trawl development, where it occurred, were universally weak and
ineffective.

In the 1970s, with the declaration by most countries of Exclusive Economic Zones through the
UNCLOS process, the existing trawler fleet (which was mainly of Thai vessels) continued to
operate and expand into other countries EEZs while several national governments looked at
ways of developing their own national fleets. With Thai authorities unable to control the number
of vessels in their own waters, the Thai fleet has not only continued to expand but has also
looked for opportunities beyond their own waters. This has led to a major issue of illegal fishing
activities in many countries of the region, which has proved difficult to control.

Despite, or perhaps because of, this essentially unregulated development of industrial trawling in
the region, landings of demersal fish and shrimp species have increased dramatically and are
currently in excess of 1.7 million tonnes of demersal fish and 600 000 tonnes of shrimp (Figure 3).
Although detailed statistics are often not available, most of the increases in these shrimp and
demersal fish landings have come from the activities of industrial trawling, except in the Philippines
where small-scale fisheries dominate and where demersal fish and shrimp landings have only
increased marginally over the past three decades. In 1950, prior to the development of industrial
trawling, the Philippines was the major contributor to demersal fish landings in the region,
accounting for 76 percent of total regional demersal fish landings. By 2002, its contribution had
shrunk to less than 20 percent (FAO, 2004).

With no more new fishing areas for the trawlers to exploit, the challenge for the region for the
future is to not only bring illegal fishing under control but, in parallel with this, to develop and
implement strategies that will limit the regions industrial trawl fleet to levels which will ensure
long-term, sustainable demersal resources.

IV. Push netting

Industrial push netting developed from traditional, small hand-operated push-nets and small
boat-operated nets (dugouts, rafts and sailing boats) in the region. Fishing with traditional
push-nets involves scooping or seining, usually along the bottom or just off the bottom in
relatively shallow waters in estuarine areas, mangrove creeks, shallow bays and littoral areas. A
bag net connected to poles is pushed forward through the water by hand to catch coastal marine
animals such as shrimp, crabs and fish. Traditional push-net fishing operations of different scales

11
are reported from Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The
most visible push-net fisheries in the region are those off the Gulf of Thailand covering the Thai
and the northern Malaysia (Terengganu) coastlines.

In the wake of fishery industrialization, some push-net fisheries have developed beyond the
non-motorized or hand-held operations and, since 1970, the efficiency of this traditional equipment
has increased by using motors rather than manpower (in the Manila Bay, Philippines [Silvestre
et al., 1987] and Gulf of Thailand [Nagalaksana, 1987]). This change allowed for push-net
fishing farther from the shore and a larger sized net. Push nets are non-selective and it is believed
that motorized push-net fishing boats are causing the deterioration of marine animal resources
and the coastal ecology in shallow, near-shore areas.

In Thailand, the Department of Fisheries imposed a 3 km near-shore fishery limit to exclude

trawling and push netting but the number of push-net boats has increased and there have been
warnings from many local communities regarding push-net fishing boats operating illegally
within the 3 km near-shore limit. The rapid development of the commercial trawling and purse
seining fleet resulted in economic hardships for small-scale, coastal fishers who became less
competitive, forcing them into these illegal fishing activities, which is particularly damaging to
the resource because of the high percentage of juvenile shrimp and fish species captured with
this gear (Nagalaksana, 1987). Controlling push-net activities in the near-shore zone has proven
difficult (Suvapepun, 1996). The use of artificial reefs in these shallow waters has been
recommended as a means to deter both push-net fishing and trawling (Pramokchutima and
Vadhanakul, 1987).

In Thailand, a total of 354 push-net fishing boats were registered in 1970, the first year of
registration. In 1974 there were 740 registered push netters with a length of between 14 and 18 m
(out of a total fleet of 3241 vessels, representing 22 percent of fishing vessels) operating mainly
on the Gulf of Thailand seaboard (Everett, 1974). In 1984, a total number of 16006 fishing boats
were registered to the Department of Fisheries of which 960 were push netters. (Pramokchutima
and Vadhanakul, 1987). By 1989, the number of boats had increased to 1907. A census of marine
fishing in 1995 counted about 4000 push-net boats, of which 1142 were lar ge boats, and noted
a trend toward even more such boats. Large boat push-net poles are about 28 to 44 m long with
a net mesh size of between 0.5 and 1.5 cm. The push-net poles of small push-net boats are 6 to
15 m long, with approximately the same size of net mesh as large push-net boats. Push-net boats
are still operating in many areas such as Prachuapkhirikhan, Chumpon, Suratthani and Pattani
provinces and in some extreme cases the legs of the push-net have been extended to allow push
netting in deeper waters beyond the near-shore zone up to depths of around 30 m.

Push-net boats harvest both large and small marine animals. In Thailand, those with economic
importance such as shrimp make up about 40 to 45 percent of the total catch; the balance, some
60 percent which are classified together as trash fish, include juveniles of economic marine
animals such as sardines, spider crabs and drum fish. These juvenile economic fish constitute
some 65 to 70 percent of the trash fish total. The remaining 30 to 35 percent are true trash
fish. It has been estimated that in one year the total push-net harvest from boats of all sizes is
26289 tonnes, of which 1516 percent are lar ge shrimp, 89 percent are spider crabs, 7 percent
are fish, 45 percent are squid/cuttlefish, and the balance a mixture of other species.

12
V. Purse seining
Although simple purse seining for pelagic species had been carried out in the region since the
nineteenth century, the impetus for the development of an industrial-scale purse seine industry
was, perversely, often the serial declines in a number of areas of demersal fish species which
were taken by trawl fishing, which has been discussed above. In many cases, which will be
further elaborated below, declining demersal fish stocks stimulated the search for new fisheries
and, with mechanized vessels available, purse seining of pelagic fisheries was an obvious choice.

In the nineteenth century, various surrounding nets came to be used like purse seines, with the
ability to close the lower end of the net by pulling a rope that passed through lead rings hanging
from the lower edge of the net. Such nets were used, for example, in the Mollucas to catch
a variety of pelagic fish and were often used in conjunction with fish aggregating devices, locally
known as rumpon. In Cebu, fishers modified traditional floating nets to act as purse seines and
these were extensively used by the 1930s to take flying fish. In the Philippines, a traditional
purse-shaped net known as sapyaw was used prior to the 1920s to take large quantities of
Sardinella although this net did not have a closing mechanism and needed to be positioned
beneath the fish school, rather than surrounding them. After the 1920s, some operators in
the Philippines adopted a net locally known as a kubkuban which was a small purse seine
net (240 m long, 20 to 40 m deep and with a very large mesh) operated from a single large
double-outrigger vessel. Because of the large mesh, larger pelagics such as mackerel were targeted.

By the early 1900s, sail-powered Chinese junks based on Hainan Island and on the Chinese
mainland were operating purse seine nets (as well as trawl nets) in the Gulf of Tonkin. In
1910, between 600 and 700 such junks paid for a fishing permit at Cac Ba Island and many
others were apparently fishing illegally. Butcher (2004) estimates that these vessels took
2000025000 tonnes of prepared fish back to their home ports annually . Similar vessels (operated
by Chinese from Hainan and each supported by three smaller tenders) were later used to develop
purse seining in the Gulf of Thailand and also for Indian mackerel in Malayan waters in the
Straits of Malacca during the 1930s, using nets that were about 310 m long, 50 m deep and with
a 1.27 cm. Contemporary records show that catches varied enormously, and ranged from about
300 kg to 12 tonnes in a single haul.

A dramatic development occurred in the Straits of Malacca fishery in 1937 with the introduction
of motorized vessels in place of the sail-powered junks. As a result of this development, landings
of Indian mackerel at Pangkor increased dramatically, rising from 860 tonnes in 1931 to
5700 tonnes in 1938. The success of the venture stimulated local Malays to also begin purse
seining, although the nets they used had larger mesh sizes than those of the Chinese purse seiners
to enable them to be handled from their existing vessels. This resulted in landings of larger size
mackerel, including, it is presumed, of Spanish mackerel.

Although developments of these traditional fishing methods resulted in increased landings, the
increases were modest when compared with the dramatic increase in demand for fish and fish
products, the increase in production from both aquaculture and from the developing trawling
industry, and the increase in imports of fish products.

By the late 1960s, however, there were emerging problems with the large number of trawlers that
were operating in areas such as the Gulf of Thailand and vessels were looking for new trawl
grounds in the region. Drastic declines in trawl catch rates in the Gulf of Thailand and soaring oil
prices prompted fishers to either modify existing vessels or have new vessels built for taking
pelagic species, instead of trawl species. There were large stocks of pelagic species in the Gulf
(particularly Indian mackerel) and methods such as purse seining required much less fuel than

13
trawling. The total pelagic catch in the Gulf of Thailand therefore increased dramatically from
63000 tonnes in 1971 to 480000 tonnes in 1977, a result not only of an increasing number of
purse seine vessels but also because of the use of light lures and the move to new fishing areas
within the Gulf. This latter factor resulted in the landing of species such as scads and sardines
that previously had not been a significant part of the pelagic catch.

Also, during the 1970s and early 1980s, the Government of Thailand promoted the development
of a canning industry by encouraging foreign investment. The first tuna cannery was established
in 1972 as a joint venture between an Australian company (Safcol Holdings) and Thai and Hong
Kong investors and by 1983 there were 3035 canneries in operation. This demand for tuna from
the canneries led to purse seine vessels targeting the abundant stock of small tuna such as
longtail (Thunnus tongil), kawakawa (Euthynnus affinis) and frigate (Auxis thazard) tuna. However,
the fleet by 1991 had to rely on tuna catches from foreign waters (including Malaysia and the
Natuna Islands) since the stocks in the Gulf of Thailand had diminished significantly. The
development of the canning, particularly tuna canning, industry in Thailand during the 1980s
(which made Thailand the worlds largest exporter of fish products by 1989, with 51 percent of
global exports) was so rapid that canning capacity outstripped the ability of the fleet to supply
raw product. This resulted not only in the Thai purse seine fleet seeking additional supplies in
other waters of Southeast Asia, but, perhaps more importantly, also led to a rapid rise in the
imports of frozen raw tuna, and other fish, for their canneries. By 1991, 79 percent of the
630000 tonnes of tuna that was canned in Thailand was derived from imported raw product.
This demand for raw tuna for the Thai canneries therefore helped, in large part, to drive the
development of tuna industries in other countries of the region, particularly the Philippines. The
vast majority of this imported tuna originated from purse seine operations throughout the region,
and, although a small quantity of tuna from pole-and-line and longline vessels was supplied to
the Thai canneries, much of the tuna from these fisheries increasingly went to the Japanese
sashimi market (see Section VI below).

As the fishery in the Gulf of Thailand developed without significant regulation, overexploitation
of some pelagic fish species in the Gulf became evident and total landings in the Gulf fell
steadily to 290000 tonnes in 1980.

In Indonesia, the development of the purse seine fishery was also influenced by the development,
and subsequent problems with, the industrial trawl fishery. Although landings of pelagic species
had been increasing substantially since the early 1900s (reaching 154000 tonnes by 1950 and
620000 tonnes by 1978 as both Chinese and Indonesian-owned purse seine vessels supplied
newly built canneries and became the dominant fishing gear in Indonesia), the ban on trawl
fishing in the 1980s accelerated the development of the purse seine fishery, particularly in the
Java Sea. The Government, when banning trawling in the western part of the country, provided
financial incentives for vessels to convert to purse seining, with the result that the number of
purse seiners increased from an average of 810 during the period 197579 to 2100 in 198487.
At this time, the larger purse seiners extended their operations into the eastern part of the Java
Sea, with the result that landings by the Java Sea purse seine fleet increased from 49000 tonnes
in 197579 to 140000 tonnes in 198487. After 1985, total landings (as well as annual landings
per vessel) fell significantly, a result of overexploitation of the major species, particularly the
small pelagics. Fortunately, the price of these fish increased at this time which enabled the purse
seine fleet not only to survive economically but also expand to new areas in the southern part of
the Makassar Strait and the waters between the Malay Peninsula and Borneo. The purse seiners
also improved their technology, using light to attract fish and hence increase their efficiency.
However, by 1995, total catches of pelagic species in the Java Sea had stagnated at around
150000 tonnes, roughly the same level as the early 1980s.

14
The catch by industrial purse seine vessels accelerated again after 1995, reaching 8 percent of the
total marine catch of Indonesia by 1997 (FAO, 2000) as the vessels continued the expansion of
their area of operations into the eastern areas of Indonesia, a process that had begun in the 1980s.
In total, small-scale purse seine operations and industrial purse seine vessels together contributed
approximately 17.6 percent of total marine production in Indonesia in 1997 (FAO, 2000) with the
majority of this still coming from the small-scale sector, which continues to dominate the industry.
However, the larger industrial purse seine vessels contribute much more in terms of value of the
catch than the small-scale sector because they focus on high-value species such as tuna and other
large pelagics whereas the small-scale fishers concentrate on inshore small pelagics in the western
part of the country.

This expansion of industrial purse seiners into eastern Indonesian waters has been supported by
the increased development of infrastructure such as tuna canneries and ports which also provide
services to foreign fishing vessels. Purse seine vessels in the west of Indonesia fish for small
pelagic species and are concentrated primarily in the Java Sea, South China Sea, Malacca Strait
and Mollucas Sea. In general, these seiners range from 10 to 30Gross Registered Tonnage
(GRT)2 , although in the last decade larger ones have been built, exceeding 100GR T. Purse seine
vessels operating in the east of the country tend to be larger vessels, in excess of 100 GRT.

During the late 1970s, Japanese purse seiners were also expanding their operations in Southeast
Asia and, in 1980, at least 14 vessels were operating off the north coast of Irian Jaya and Papua
New Guinea, each taking about 15 tonnes of fish per day. As part of this operation, the Japanese
vessels also captured large quantities of tuna in and around Indonesian waters.

In the Philippines, the traditional kubkuban purse seine net, in use since the 1920s, has continued
to be used by small-scale, inshore fishers to take mackerel. In addition, in the 1950s, large-scale
purse seining was introduced to the Philippines, probably by American tuna seiners operating in
the eastern Pacific. The introduction included the use of nylon nets and power blocks for hauling
the net. As the new fishing method was taken up enthusiastically, with trawlers being converted
to seiners and secondhand Japanese purse seine vessels being imported, the move to purse
seining was further supported by government incentives and assistance from a United Nations
Special Fund project in importing nylon nets and other equipment.

At first, the increasing number of purse seine vessels (there were already 48 operating by 1966)
targeted small pelagic species but, because of the large quantities of fish being landed and the
lack of onshore processing facilities to handle the catch, prices collapsed in the late 1960s. With
this price collapse, together with warnings that increasing fishing on small pelagic species may
lead to a reduction in the quantity of fish available, vessels began to turn their attention to tuna.
By 1975, purse seining for tuna in the Philippines had increased dramatically, aided by the
development of fish aggregating devices, locally called payaw, around which the purse seiners as
well as handline fishers operated. The payaw is particularly effective for aggregating skipjack
and yellowfin tuna. Recorded tuna landings in the Philippines exploded from about 23 000 tonnes
in 1973 to 220000 tonnes in 1977 although statistics are imprecise because of factors such as
unrecorded foreign catches and the practice of Filipino vessels selling their catch to foreign
vessels at sea.

Since the late 1970s, catches from tuna purse seining in the waters of the Philippines have
increased only slowly, with recorded landings reaching about 300000 tonnes by 1997 and
400000 tonnes by 2002. However , during this time, Filipino operators of tuna purse seiners have
expanded their operations considerably to other areas in the Indian and Pacific Oceans and these
2
GRT is a measure of the capacity of the vessel below the main deck and differs from weight measures of vessels, such
as displacement tonnage. See footnote 3 for details of the units of measurement for vessels.

15
increases in recorded landings partly reflect this expanded fishing area as well as the targeting of
other, smaller tuna species. Purse seining remains, however, the most common form of commercial
fishing gear in the Philippines with 61 percent of operators using this gear, 15.7 percent using
ring-nets and 12.4 percent using bag nets (FAO, 2005a). By contrast, only 3.7 percent of
small-scale fishers use the small traditional purse seine or kubkuban. The purse seines, ringnets
and handlines usually account for over 80 percent of the annual tuna catch, with nearly half the
commercial tuna catch in 1995 taken by purse seine.

In addition to tuna, commercial purse seiners target small pelagic species, particularly roundscad,
sardines and Indian mackerel. Together, these small pelagic species accounted for 47 percent by
weight of overall commercial landings in 2003 (FAO, 2005a) from all gear types with tunas
comprising the remainder. However, the proportion derived only from purse seine operations has
not been reported. Because of their lower value, the small pelagic species comprise a much
smaller proportion by value of the total commercial catch.

The shift in emphasis in a number of countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines in the 1960s
and 1970s from demersal trawling to purse seining of small pelagics and, later, tuna, has also
prompted other countries of the region to examine purse seining. In Viet Nam, some purse
seining was undertaken early in the twentieth century by Chinese junks operating in the Gulf of
Tonkin, as noted above. However, Viet Nam has not developed its own offshore purse seine fleet
to any great extent although small purse seine vessels have, for some decades, taken small
pelagic species in inshore waters. Although the inshore fishery is dominated by small trawlers,
the offshore fleet of some 20000 vessels includes only about 100 vessels (with engines of
400500 horsepower) which have the capacity for deep-sea fishing. This fleet comprises either
trawlers or purse seiners. Trawlers are used in waters 3580 m deep in southeastern waters,
whereas purse seiners fish pelagic species in deep waters, mainly off the central region. The
estimated percentage of the total catch from major types of fishing gear (FAO, 2005b) are;
trawling 30 percent, purse seine 26 percent, gillnet 18 percent, lift net 5 percent, longline
6 percent and others (fixed net, push-net etc.) 15 percent. However, the development of offshore
fisheries (including purse seining for tuna) has been vigorously promoted by the Government
and has been included in a recent long-term strategic plan for the fisheries sector (FAO/Fishcode,
2004).

The expansion of purse seining by Thai vessels in particular also impacted the waters of Cambodia.
Although Cambodia has a traditional, small-scale purse seine fishery, which operates in inshore
waters to take Indian mackerel and anchovies (FAO, 2005c) together with small quantities of
tuna, it has not developed a national industrial-scale purse seine fleet. Foreign purse seine
operations in the waters of Cambodia, using industrial scale vessels, has, however, long taken
place, often by Thai and Japanese vessels and this currently includes illegal operations. No data
are available on the number of vessels involved or their catches.

While small-scale purse seine fisheries have a long tradition in many countries of the region, the
development of industrialized purse seine fisheries in Southeast Asia accelerated following the
initial decline in demersal fish stocks in the late 1960s. This development led to a search for new
fisheries and, most importantly, for employment for the vessels and crew that were engaged in
demersal trawling. Subsequent support of the boatbuilding industry in several countries and the
increase in oil price in the 1970s also added to the attractiveness of vessels moving into the purse
seine fishery.

With the decline in small pelagic stocks and reduced prices, the purse seine vessels turned their
attention to tuna fishing in the early 1970s, particularly in the Philippines where this development
was assisted by the use of fish aggregating devices. In addition, most of the purse seine fleets

16
expanded out of their national waters in search of tuna (and also, to a lesser extent, small pelagic
species) and it was this expansion and the move to tuna fishing that supported continued expansion
both of the purse seine fleet and their catches. However, since the purse seine fleets were
operating both inside and outside their national waters (both legally and illegally) and landing
their catch in various places, the statistics on landings, the place of capture and the number of
vessels operating are notoriously unreliable.

While the expansion of the tuna fisheries (and, to a lesser extent, small pelagics) is still occurring
in some areas, and countries such as Viet Nam are still looking to expand their industrial purse
seine fleet, most stocks of small and large pelagic species within the national waters of countries
of the region are considered to have reached their peak production. Examining the regions
large-scale marine ecosystems (LMEs), Sugiyama et al. (2004) concluded that small pelagic
stocks in the region had either peaked or were fluctuating in all areas except within the
Sulu-Celebes Sea, the Indonesian Sea and the South China Sea LMEs where they were still
increasing while large pelagics had either peaked or were fluctuating in all areas except the
South China Sea LME. They also noted that the small and large pelagic resources in all areas
generally had peaked after the demersal stocks, which is consistent with the known development
of the trawl and purse seine fisheries in the region.

In the Philippines, recent studies on pelagic fisheries indicate overfishing and declining catch per
unit effort (CPUE). Exceptions are in lightly fished areas in waters off Palawan, parts of the
countrys Pacific coast and some parts of Mindanao. Such findings are supported by an observed
change in species composition, i.e. anchovies have partially replaced sardines, scads and mackerels
in the catch, an indication of gradual stock collapse (Green et al., 2003).

Like the demersal resources, the potential for expanding landings of small and large pelagic
species by purse seining in the region therefore appears limited and the challenge for national
governments is to move to long-term control and management of their existing fishing fleets.
There are some encouraging signs that this is happening. Several countries (e.g. Viet Nam and
the Philippines) have recently introduced new fisheries laws and, in the Philippines, the
Government has made a significant policy shift by introducing joint management mechanisms of
the fisheries sector, involving both the central government and the municipalities, and the fishers,
through Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Management Councils.

However, much remains to be done in bringing long-term, sustainable management to purse

seine operations in the region.

VI. Shrimp trawling

The development of shrimp trawling in the region paralleled the development of demersal fish
trawling and, in many areas, shrimp were taken as a by-catch to demersal fishing. However, in
Indonesia, the development of trawling in the 1960s was, from the beginning, specifically targeted
at catching shrimp and Gulf of Mexico-type shrimp nets, rather than demersal fish trawls, were
used.

The increasing interest in shrimp in the Indonesian trawl fishery, as well as in other areas,
coincided with a growing demand for shrimp in Japan. It is therefore not surprising that Japanese
companies were involved in the development of the Indonesian shrimp fishery, initially by
themselves and, after 1969, as partners in joint venture arrangements with Indonesian fishing
companies. Between 1967 and 1971, one wholly owned Japanese company and about 10 joint
ventures began operating shrimp trawlers in the Straits of Malacca, the waters off Kalimantan
and the Arafura Sea.

17
Supported by Japanese capital investment, these joint ventures were vertically integrated
undertakings, operating a range of trawlers which delivered the catch to their own freezing and
cold storage facilities and exporting the product. Exports of frozen shrimp from Indonesia rose
from 5600 tonnes in 1969 (valued at US$873000) to 35000 tonnes in 1979, valued at over
US$200 million. As the prices paid for shrimp increased substantially and additional freezing
and cold storage facilities were added, landings and exports continued to increase dramatically as
small-scale fishers and independent trawlers sold their product to the cold storage and export
companies, and vessels travelled further to find new fishing grounds.

During the 1980s, the declaration of Exclusive Economic Zones also had a profound impact on
shrimp trawling in the region. Countries with extensive EEZs were able to continue to expand
their shrimp trawling operations (supported by onshore cold storage facilities and onboard freezing)
while countries with smaller EEZs had greater difficulty in accessing shrimp grounds beyond
their own EEZ. Because of this, the shrimp catches of Indonesia (FAO, 2004) continued to
increase throughout the 1980s and 1990s (rising from 117000 tonnes in 1980 to 288000 tonnes in
2002) while those of Malaysia stagnated, declining from 84000 to 76000 tonnes during the
same period.

As the price of shrimp increased dramatically in the late 1960s and early 1970s, trawl fisheries
that had been established in other countries, particularly Thailand and Malaysia (see Section III
above), targeted areas where good shrimp catches could be taken, although they continued
catching and landing demersal fish. For example, between 1965 and 1972, the proportion by
weight of shrimp to demersal fish landed in Malaysia increased from 38 to 59 percent and in
Thailand it increased from 54 to 71 percent (FAO, 2004). However, shrimp stocks in most areas
were soon under pressure and the focus returned to demersal fish species, particularly since the
price of shrimp started to decline with the introduction in the early 1970s of shrimp culture in the
region and its subsequent explosive growth over the next two decades. In Thailand, for example,
the proportion by weight of shrimp to demersal fish in the landings declined from 71 percent in
1972 to 35 percent in 1992 (FAO, 2004; see also Figure 3).

In 2002, 73 percent of total regional shrimp landings of about 623 000 tonnes came from just
three countries: Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia a similar percentage (72 percent) to that
from the same three countries in 1970. However, in 2002, Indonesias landings had increased to
287 990 tonnes or about 46 percent of total regional landings compared with only 50 200 tonnes
or 22 percent of regional landings in 1970. By contrast, Malaysias share of total regional
landings fell from 22 percent in 1970 to 12 percent in 2002, as landings there increased only
slightly over the 32 year period.

With the possible exception of Indonesia, shrimp trawling in the region is inextricably linked to
a more general, multi-species demersal trawl industry that takes fish, shrimp and other species.
Its development and future direction therefore very much depends on the relative prices for
shrimp and other species of the demersal trawl catch (and their relative abundance) since these
relative prices will, in large part, determine the species that are targeted by trawl vessels. In this
regard, the development of shrimp aquaculture in the region, and in other parts of the world,
is a major factor since it has led to a long-term decline in world shrimp prices. These declining
shrimp prices have probably eased the pressure on shrimp stocks and, throughout the
region, shrimp now comprise a smaller proportion of demersal catches than at any other time
(see Figure 3). Whether this is a result of fewer shrimp, because of overexploitation or habitat
degradation, or an active targeting of other species, it is not possible to judge from the little data
and analyses that are available.

18
VII. Tuna longlining, poling and purse seining
As noted in Section IV above, purse seining activities in the region, although initially targeting
small pelagic species, had, by the early 1980s, begun to target various tuna species and also
expanded their operations to the eastern part of Indonesia, the coasts of Irian Jaya and further
afield. Initially, Japanese purse seine vessels led this expansion although vessels from the
Philippines and Indonesia quickly followed.

The taking of tuna in the area, however, was a traditional fishery practice in many countries. In
the nineteenth century, trawl-shaped nets (locally called payang), trolling using lures made from
feathers and longlining (locally called rawai) were all common fishing methods in the western
islands area of Indonesia, Singapore and Malaya (Butcher, 2004) and took not only small tuna
species but also other large pelagics and, in the case of longlining, demersal species such as
sharks and rays. In the Mollucas, pole-and-line fishing for skipjack tuna was also a common
fishing method and involved the use of live bait and barbless hooks with a piece of feather as
a lure. By the early 1900s, Japanese fishing vessels had begun fishing in a number of countries of
Southeast Asia. Japanese trollers, driftnetters and muro ami (a net for specifically taking fusiliers,
family Caesionidae) fishers had established themselves in Singapore by the 1920s and, in the
1930s were taking, in addition to fusiliers, shad, small sharks and other species, both skipjack
tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) and bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) by trolling. Although the catches
of these species were not large (about 100 tonnes were landed in 1932), the development is
significant in that it introduced deepwater trolling for these species to the region.

The Japanese were also active in developing the pole-and-line fishery for skipjack tuna (although,
as noted above, there was a traditional pole-and-line fishery for tuna in the Mollucas), which was
mainly caught for the Japanese market and formed part of a broader skipjack pole-and-line
fishery that extended beyond Southeast Asia into the Pacific coast of Japan and the western
Pacific Ocean. Beginning in about 1910 the Japanese started developing bases in the region, and
by the 1930s they had them established in a number of countries including at Ambon, Manado,
Ternato, Davao, Zamboanga, Si Amil Island and Aertembaga. These bases were used as receiving,
processing and exporting depots and produced not only dried tuna stick (known to the Japanese
as kasuobushi) but also canned product. The pole-and-line technique used was similar to that
used in the Mollucas and involved bamboo poles, live bait and barbless hooks. However, the
Japanese also introduced the technique of spraying water on the sea surface, giving the illusion
of even more small fish.

While accurate statistics on this fishery are scarce, one company based at Zamboanga landed
1100 tonnes of skipjack and 260 tonnes of immature yellowfin tuna in 1938, with the fleet
fishing over a wide area that included the Sulu Sea, Moro Gulf, Celebes Sea and the Davao Gulf.
The pole-and-line fishery seems to have been favourably received and, as one researcher in the
Philippines commented in 1940 (quoted by Butcher, 2004, p.158), the pole-and-line fishery is
not conducive to depleting the tuna fishing grounds although the use of purse seines for
catching tuna should be discouraged as much as possible in Philippines tuna grounds since the
purse seine was far less selective in what it caught than the pole and line.

During this period, the Japanese were also exploring the development of a deep water longline
fishery for tuna and, by 1932, had factory ships operating in Sumatran waters that processed and
canned yellowfin tuna on board for the Japanese market. By 1941, the Japanese had conducted
longlining activities in the South China, Sulu, Celebes, Mollucas and Banda Seas as well as the
Pacific Ocean between New Guinea and Mindanao and the Indian Ocean.

19
In the year after the Second World War, Japanese activity in tuna fishing in Southeast Asia
declined dramatically. However, the potential of tuna stocks in the region was well recognized.
In 1950, in recognition of the virtually unexploited status of tuna in the Philippines, a company
began operating longliners that had been brought from Taiwan. However, the venture failed. By
1970, however, companies that operated freezing and processing plants began supplying fishers
with small vessels and hand troll lines to take large yellowfin tuna for export to Japan. By the
late 1970s, the fishers based at General Santos City were landing about 40 tonnes of yellowfin
tuna per day.

A major development in the tuna fishery in the Philippines came in 1975 with the development
of a fish aggregating device, locally known as a payaw. This floating fish lure was used by both
the purse seiners (described in Section IV) who targeted skipjack and juvenile yellowfin tuna and
by the hand-line fishers who targeted large yellowfin and bigeye tuna. This combination of purse
seine and hand-line catches brought about a spectacular increase in tuna catches in the Philippines,
which rose from 23000 tonnes in 1973 to 220000 tonnes in 1977.

By the early 1950s, however, Japanese vessels had begun to return to longlining and pole-and-
line fishing for tuna, including in waters around Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as the
Indian and Pacific Oceans. The catching vessels were supported by mother ships, taking their
catch directly back to Japan. The nature of this fishery meant that landings statistics for tuna in
the region are certainly underestimated with the extent of underestimation being related to the
extent of this type of foreign fishing.

The Japanese longliners involved with mothership operations varied in size from 2050 tonnes to
over 200 tonnes but, according to a 1963 report, were typically 100200 GRT3 . These longliners
targeted yellowfin tuna but also took significant quantities of bigeye tuna and operated initially
in the western areas of the Banda, Celebes and Mollucas Seas (which were international waters
in the 1950s) but quickly spread their operations westwards into the Indian Ocean. In 1968, and
in response to Indonesias territorial seas claims, Indonesia and Japan signed the Banda Sea
Agreement which provided access for Japanese tuna longliners to areas of the Banda Sea and to
Indonesian ports for payment of an annual fee. This Agreement lasted until 1975, when the
Indonesian Government attempted to establish its own tuna longlining company, Perikan Samodra
Besar (PSB), although this company then entered into a new agreement with the Japanese to
allow continued access to the tuna fishing areas in the Banda Sea, but under much stricter
conditions than before.

With a move away from canned tuna and towards sashimi product in the 1970s, the Japanese
longline fleet in Southeast Asia declined as longliners began targeting species such as southern
bluefin tuna in the Indian Ocean and the vessels remaining in Southeast Asia shifted their
emphasis away from yellowfin to species that were more suitable for sashimi product, such as
bigeye tuna. In the Banda Sea area, yellowfin tuna comprised about 75 percent of total tuna
catches in 1974, but by 1980 bigeye tuna made up 5075 percent of the catch. The better
targeting of bigeye tuna was achieved by changing the method of longlining from surface to deep
longlines, set at 100300 m below the surface. This development of deep longlining therefore
extended the area available for fishing deeper into the water column and led to continued
expansion of landings throughout the region during the 1980s.

3
Butcher (2004) notes that the original sources for this information quote both tons and Gross Tonnage (GT) for the
size of vessels. It is presumed that tons refers to displacement tonnage and that GT refers to the vessels capacity,
including the area above the top deck. This is different to, and usually greater than, GRT which refers to the vessels
capacity, excluding the area above the top deck. No conversion to a standardized unit of measurement of vessel size has
been attempted, or is possible without knowing the detailed design of the vessels.

20
The Japanese pole-and-line fishery has always been more important in the areas around the
Philippines and the eastern seas of Southeast Asia than around the western areas and, in 1970,
their main area of operation was the Philippines and the northern tip of Borneo. Because of their
reliance on live, small baitfish (which are generally found in inshore waters), the pole-and-line
vessels are not able to fish in areas remote from land. This reliance on land-based operations also
meant that Japanese pole-and-line vessels, unlike purse seine vessels or longliners, could not
operate without close relationships with the coastal states and therefore, Japanese operations in
places like the eastern areas of Indonesia and the Philippines were more often under joint-venture
arrangements.

However, by the mid-to-late 1970s, Japan was taking steps to replace its pole-and-line vessels
with purse seiners, which were proving a much more efficient and profitable method of taking
tuna. This also coincided with the Japanese longliners move from canned product to sashimi
product (and the consequent shift in targeted species) and increased fishing by Japanese vessels
in the Indian Ocean. These two developments resulted in an overall decline of Japanese tuna
fishing activity in Southeast Asian waters and allowed the fledgling pole-and-line and longline
industries in countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines to further develop. As noted above,
purse seining and trolling, using the payaw fish aggregating device, developed rapidly in the
Philippines after 1975 and by 1980 in Indonesia the PSB company, established in 1975, was
operating seventeen 111 GRT4 tuna longline vessels off Bali and Sumatra although they had
reverted to targeting yellowfin tuna by sub-surface longlines rather than bigeye tuna with deep
longlines. Three pole-and-line tuna companies were also formed and operated 29 vessels off
Irian Jaya (in areas where the Japanese had formally fished) by the early 1980s. At that time, the
Government of Indonesia was anxious to support a local tuna industry and supported these, and
other, tuna longlining and pole-and-line companies financially, enabling them to expand their
operations during the 1990s.

In 2002, Indonesia and the Philippines were the dominant tuna fishing nations in the region,
accounting for more than 85 percent of regional tuna landings (Figure 4). While the majority of
these came from purse seining (see Section IV above), trolling, pole-and-line and longline vessels
were major contributors to tuna landings, and were particularly important in the small-scale
fisheries of both countries. The statistics on tuna landings for the region shown in Figure 4 are,
however, highly questionable because of the nature of the tuna industry and the nature of the
national reporting systems. For example, tuna taken in the Philippines by Japanese vessels and
landed in Japan are unlikely to appear in the national statistics of the Philippines and, likewise,
tuna taken by Thai vessels in Indonesia are likely to appear in the national statistics of Thailand,
not Indonesia. These issues need to be taken into account when considering tuna landing and
production statistics for the region, although the overall upward trend in landings for the region
may not be influenced as much by these factors.

4
GRT measurements were used in the original report quoted by Butcher (2004). See footnote 3 regarding units of
measurement for fishing vessel capacity.

21
 700 000

600 000

500 000

400 000

300 000

200 000

100 000

0
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Indonesia Philippines Thailand

Malaysia Viet Nam Singapore

Unit: tonnes

Figure 4. Landings of tuna (all species) by all methods

by country in Southeast Asia, 19502002

VIII. Driftnetting
Driftnetting has a long history in Southeast Asia, with the nets originally being made from
coconut or ramie fibre imported from China. In areas such as the Straits of Malacca, Borneo, the
Mollucas and Java, the landings from driftnets probably accounted for the majority of the catch
in some areas during the nineteenth century. The traditional use of such nets were to set them in
the evening and haul them in the morning with catches consisting of species such as shad,
Spanish mackerel, wolf herring and small sharks, depending on the area fished and the mesh size
of the net. The fishery in these early years was undertaken exclusively by small-scale fishers
operating nets that were typically 110400 m in length.

However, by the late 1920s, Japanese fishers based in Singapore had begun using driftnets in the
Straits of Malacca and, by the early 1930s, there were two Japanese companies specializing in
driftnetting there. These fishers undertook driftnetting on a much larger scale than the Malays
and Chinese fishing in the Straits, using a 25 tonne vessel5 with a 50 horsepower engine to tow
several smaller sail-powered fishing vessels from Singapore. Each of these smaller vessels operated
nets that were some 900 m long and the catch was iced and returned to Singapore on a regular
basis by a transport vessel. The fishing vessels therefore were able to stay fishing for long
periods of time without returning to port. Catch rates were about 90 kg per vessel per day,
compared with the Chinese and Malay vessels catches of about 9 kg per day. In 1932, the
Japanese driftnetters landed 1400 tonnes of fish, mainly of Spanish mackerel, wolf herring,
small sharks and shad, which comprised some 13 percent of total landings in Singapore.

By the end of the Second World War, the Japanese driftnetters, like other Japanese fishing fleets,
no longer operated in the Straits of Malacca. However, their methods of using motorized vessels
to tow smaller vessels to the fishing grounds and to transport the catch to market were soon
adopted by local fishers. By the 1950s, outboard motors were becoming readily available and
one of their first uses was to power existing craft that were used for driftnetting, particularly in
5
The original report quoted by Butcher (2004) uses tons as a measure for vessel size and this presumably refers to
displacement tonnage. No conversion to a standardized measure of vessel size is possible. See footnote 3 on issues
relating to the measurement of vessel size.

22
the Straits of Malacca and the Malay Peninsula. The pace of mechanization of fishing vessels,
and the impact that this had, cannot be overestimated in 1947, about 1 percent of vessels in the
Malay Peninsula were mechanized while by 1965, 55 percent of vessels had engines.

This increasing mechanization not only allowed catches to be transported from the fishing grounds
to the market but also allowed vessels to follow fish schools, thus extending the area which was
fished. At the same time, nylon nets began to replace the traditional fibre or cotton nets and, in
1958, it was noted that drift net catches in the Malacca Straits have doubled with the replacement
of cotton by synthetic fibre resulting in an increased supply of Tenggiri [Spanish mackerel] and
Parang [wolf herring] to the west coast markets (Anon, 1958).

In Indonesia, driftnetting for the same species as taken on the Malay Peninsula had also had
a long history and the Japanese driftnetters based in Singapore in the 1930s also operated near
the east coast of Sumatra within the Straits of Malacca. Indonesian fishers, however, continued
to use small nets and sail-powered craft both on the east and west coast of Sumatra, Java and
Borneo and the contribution to total catches from driftnetting remained small. In the 1950s, the
number of vessels and fishers in Indonesia began to increase dramatically, from 80000 vessels
in 1951 to 200000 in 1961, an increase of 120000. However , much of this increase was in
non-motorised, traditional craft, which increased by 115000 vessels.

In contrast to the 55 percent of the fishing fleet in Malaya that was motorized by 1965, in
Indonesia only 1.4 percent of the fleet was motorized by 1967 (Butcher, 2004, adapted from his
table 6.6). Driftnet fishing in Indonesia, therefore, continued using traditional small nets and
sail-powered craft, although the number of such craft evidently increased substantially during the
1950s and 1960s. When motorization of the fleet came to Indonesia in the late 1960s, it spurred
the development of the trawl fishery (see Section III) but was adopted more slowly by other
sectors such as the driftnet fishers. As a result, the importance of the driftnet fishery in Indonesia
declined as a percentage of total landings as the landings from the trawl fishery increased
rapidly.

After the trawl ban imposed by Indonesia in 1980 and 1981 in western parts of the country
(see Section III), there was a rapid recovery in inshore demersal and pelagic fish stocks, despite
the trawl ban being only partly effective. At the same time, the Government provided easy credit
for the building of new vessels and imposed no restrictions on other forms of fishing, apart from
trawling. This resulted in both an upgrading and mechanization of vessels (the number of motors
about doubling during the early 1980s and the number of fishers increasing by a third) and an
increase in both the number of motorized and non-motorised vessels. Although it is not known
how the driftnet fishery was impacted by such changes, it seems reasonable to assume that
driftnet fishers also took advantage of this situation to upgrade vessels and fishing gear so they
could better target the increased abundance of fish in inshore waters.

In 1998, the number of fishing vessels in Indonesia had reached about 334000 (F AO, 2000) with
57 percent of them still without motors. Most of these were involved in small-scale traditional
and subsistence fishing and, in 1998, this small-scale sector contributed 94.6 percent of total
marine landings of 3.27 million tonnes (FAO, 2000, but total landings data apparently
show a typographical error and therefore have been corrected in accordance with FAO, 2004).
The purse seine fishery (17.64 percent), lift net fishery (8.26 percent), trammel net (5.02 percent)
and the skipjack and yellowfin tuna pole-and-line fishery (3.08 percent) were the most important
fisheries with driftnetting remaining a very minor component of overall landings.

Driftnet fishing also remains the preserve of small-scale fishers in most other countries of the
region. In the Philippines, small-scale (or Municipal) fishers took about 922000 tonnes of fish

23
in 2003 (Anon, 2005a), which represented about 45 percent of total landings. Although the most
common fishing method used by these Municipal fisheries is hook and line, a fixed or floating
gillnet contributed around 45.5 percent of total Municipal small pelagic landings in 1995 (Zaragosa
et al., 2004). Small pelagic species are by far the most important component of the
Municipal landings and these are also caught by other fishing methods (Zaragosa et al., 2004)
such as hook-and-line (15.3 percent of total Municipal landings), ringnet (11.5 percent), beach
seine (8.3 percent), purse seine (3.7 percent), fish corral (2.9 percent) and bag net (2.9 percent).

In Viet Nam, fixed and floating gillnets are also significant contributors to the landings from the
inshore small-scale sector, with 18 percent of total landings in 2003 coming from these nets
(FAO, 2005b). However, no distinction is made in the landings data between the types of net
although at least some of these gillnets are operated as small driftnets. Drift gillnetting is, and
always has been, more important in the northern parts of Viet Nam (including Ha Long Bay and
the Gulf of Tonkin) than in the south although current statistical data (Anon, 2005b) does not
allow the separation of landings and other data by fishing method.

IX. Trolling
Trolling was a well established fishing method in many areas of Southeast Asia (particularly the
Straits of Malacca, the Philippines and the western islands of Indonesia) by the nineteenth
century with unbaited hooks, and a lure made from chicken feathers being towed behind
sail-powered vessels to take small tunas and Spanish mackerel.

Like driftnetting (see Section VII), the Japanese that who were based in Singapore from the
1920s transformed the way in which trolling was conducted in the region and, in the 1930s, were
taking both skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) and bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) by trolling.
Although the catches of these species were not large when compared with the driftnet fishery
discussed in Section VII (about 100 tonnes were landed by trolling in 1932), the development is
significant in that it appears that it introduced deepwater trolling for these species to the region.
Skipjack inhabit deep coastal and oceanic water while bigeye tuna seldom appear at the surface,
but are abundant at thermocline depths and therefore the landing of quantities of these species
would indicate that the Japanese trollers had developed techniques to fish in deep offshore
waters. In 1932, it was reported that these fishers, using motorized vessels, were working in
areas remote from Singapore as far as the Anambas and Natuna Islands, the northern entrance to
the Straits of Malacca, the Mergui Archipelago and the coasts of Borneo.

With the cessation of the activities of the Japanese troll fishers after the Second World War,
trolling in the Straits of Malacca and other areas reverted to the operations of small, local,
sail-powered vessels and further development of this sector was intimately tied to the rate of
mechanization of the small-scale fishing fleet. As discussed in Section VII, in Malaysia and also
in Singapore, this mechanization occurred rapidly during the 1950s and 1960s whereas in Indonesia
and the Philippines, it occurred more slowly. As a result, a return to the use of mechanized
vessels for trolling, and the exploitation of waters remote from the vessels home base, pioneered
by the Japanese, occurred more quickly in Malaysia and Singapore than in other countries.
Malaysia and Singapore, therefore, were able to sustain a small dedicated troll fishery, mainly for
tuna, whereas in other areas trolling was often undertaken by small-scale fishers as an additional
activity (often as they made their way to and from fishing grounds) to demersal hand-lining,
gillnetting and other methods. In no area, however, was trolling a dominant activity.

In the Philippines, the development in 1975 of a fish aggregating device, locally known as
a payaw, impacted significantly not only on the purse seine industry (see Section IV) but also on
fishers who were taking tuna by hand-trolling. The tuna payaw (see Section IV) was a larger

24
version of a similar lure that inshore fishers had traditionally used for small pelagic species,
except the tuna payaw was placed between 35 and 110 km offshore, about 11 km apart from each
other and in waters up to 3000 m deep. The rafts were harvested every 5 or 6 days. The
cooperation between the two groups of fishers was significant with trollers and hand-line fishers
targeting the larger tuna species that were attracted by the smaller prey fish but which swam at
depths out of reach of the purse seine net. The hand-line and troll fishers watched over the payaw
in return for the privilege of fishing there. This combination of purse seine and hand-line catches
brought about a spectacular increase in tuna catches in the Philippines, which rose from
23000 tonnes in 1973 to 220000 tonnes in 1977.

Apart from this positive interaction between purse seine and troll fishers, the development of the
tuna purse seine industry in the region (and, to a lesser extent, the pole-and-line fishery) also
impacted negatively on vessels that were using trolling to take tunas. As the appetite of Thailands
tuna canneries grew through the 1980s and the Thai purse seine fleet moved into new waters to
meet the demand of the canneries, the total catch by the Thai fleet of small tuna species suitable
for canning jumped from 20000 tonnes in 1981 to 170000 tonnes in 1992, but then, as they ran
out of new areas to exploit, the catch began to decline. One of the impacts of this intensified
fishing on small tunas by the Thai trawlers was that catches by Malaysian trollers operating off
the east coast of the Malaysian Peninsula collapsed.

Trolling, like driftnetting, remains primarily an activity of the small-scale fisheries sector
in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. However, unlike
driftnetting, trolling for tuna and other pelagic species is generally undertaken as an adjunct, and
often opportunistic, activity to other fishing operations. Because of this, and because of its
relative small importance in most areas, statistics specific to this fishery are usually not available.

X. Other industrial fishing operations, including failed types of

industrial fishing
While much of the large-scale industrial fishing technology in the region, such as purse seining
and trawling, has been introduced by expansion from other areas of existing fishing methods,
there are a number of large-scale production technologies that have developed from existing
techniques used by small-scale fishers. Perhaps the most important of these is the technology of
fixed stake nets used in various parts of the region, and particularly the muro ami net that was
first introduced by Japanese fishers to Manila and Singapore in 1919 and later into Batavia in
1925. These nets, which were portable fixed nets secured to coral reefs, were used to take
fusiliers (Family Caesionidae) around the reef areas and quickly became so important that, for
example, between 27 and 42 percent of all fish landings in Singapore between 1931 and 1938
were fusiliers from muro ami nets. Similar developments occurred in Batavia (where, in the
period 193538, 25 percent of all fish sales were fusiliers from muro ami fishing) and in the
Philippines where a single muro ami team typically landed 7080 tonnes of fish per month in the
late 1930s.

The technique, however, was so effective that it not only quickly resulted in declines of the
stocks of reef fish but also impacted severely on the coral reefs where the nets were used. This
was particularly so during the period 19451960 where the technique was used on a vastly
increased scale in the Philippines with mother vessels, large nets and very large teams of divers
and fishers being used to serially deplete coral reef areas in the region. However, by the 1980s
there was an increasing concern about not only the heavy fishing pressure on coral reef fish
stocks, but also on the physical damage that was being done to coral reefs in the Philippines and
the South China Sea and the employment of children in the dangerous work of diving.

25
The technique was first banned in the late 1980s in the Philippines but later permitted using
a modified moru ami net (called pa-aling fishing) which did lesser damage to the coral reefs.
However, the technique was finally banned under Section 92 of the new Philippines Fisheries
Code in 1998 because of the continued destruction of coral reefs and a study which concluded
that stocks of reef fish, particularly on isolated reefs in the South China Sea, had been severely
depleted.

In the transition from subsistence fishing using traditional techniques to the development of
industrial fishing techniques to supply a rapidly increasing regional population, there were
a number of other ventures that were tried but were not successful. Some of these, such as the
attempted introduction of diving bell technology into the pearl shell industry in the 1870s, failed
because they were inappropriate technologies while others (such as the early attempts at demersal
trawling and purse seining for small pelagics) failed because they were pioneering attempts at
introducing new industrial fishing methods and therefore, although failing, provided the experience
for others to later successfully introduce similar technology. Throughout the history of fishing in
the region, fishers in Southeast Asia have been characterized by their ingenuity in developing
innovative ways of catching fish using local materials or materials available at the time. For
example, items such as marine engines and munitions were abundant after the Second World War
and were used to power fishing vessels and, particularly in the Philippines, to capture fish using
explosives. However, this tradition of innovation has often been restricted to small-scale fishers
where the costs of experimenting with innovation were minimal.

Innovation in the industrial fishing sector has also been entrepreneurial and opportunistic (and
often assisted by government financial incentives) rather than the result of any detailed analysis
of the long-term risks and rewards of investment in the fishing industry. Some of these government
financial incentives were spectacularly successful (such as the promotion of a fish canning
industry in Thailand in the 1970s) while others were less so. In several instances, development of
new fisheries production methods occurred rapidly despite government policies, such as in Malaysia
where, despite a government rejection in 1958 of trawling as a potential direction for the fishing
industry, trawling accounted for 48 percent of total landings of 440000 tonnes by 1974. However ,
the common factor that unites both successful and unsuccessful government intervention and
incentives for investment has been the often scant regard that has been paid to the capacity of the
fisheries resource to support the proposed development. The region is littered with examples
ranging from national government support for the unregulated development of the trawl industry
in Thailand and Indonesia in the 1960s to the support, up to 1998, of large-scale moru ami
fishing discussed above.

XI. Conclusions
The study by Butcher (2004) highlights the boom-and-bust nature of development of industrial
marine fisheries in the region over the past century or so as, one by one, stocks and habitats were
exploited in an often uncontrolled, unregulated manner and, when these were depleted, the fleet
moved on to the next area or stock. This sequential plunder also occurred across fisheries as the
declining economic performance of one fishery spurred the transfer of vessels and fishers to
a new, developing fishery (very often with government assistance) which in its turn also
declined. However, the point was reached in about the 1980s where there were very few new,
underexploited areas for fleets to move to within the region and very few new types of fisheries
that fleets could transfer to. This remains the situation in the region today.

This boom-and-bust nature of development of industrial fishing has severely impacted on the
small-scale fisheries in the region, which still account for the vast majority of landings (up to

26
94 percent of total landings for example, in Indonesia) and this led in the past, and continues to
lead to, violent clashes between industrial and small-scale fishers.

Another issue highlighted by the analysis of Butcher (2004) is the poor state of even basic
statistics on landings, fishing methods and fishing effort. This lack of statistics from the past has
made the analysis by Butcher (2004) on the development of fisheries in the region very difficult
and often reliant on isolated, qualitative information which, nevertheless, Butcher has assembled
from an impressive range of sources. There has never been and there remain today virtually no
statistics that are collected on a regional basis (an important gap since many stocks cross national
boundaries and are fished by fleets from a number of nations) and there is no consistent regional
approach to the type and methodology of statistics collection. In addition, most national statistics
are poor both in the extent of their coverage and precision. The basic data upon which to assess
the impact of fishing on fish stocks and to make informed fisheries development and management
decisions was, therefore, never collected in the past and this important gap in knowledge remains
today.

XII. References
Anon. 1958. Annual report, 1958 Department of Fisheries, Federation of Malaya, p.1.
Anon. 2005a. Philippine fisheries profile, 2003. Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources,
Manila.
Anon. 2005b. Annual fisheries statistical data, 2001-2003, Ministry of Fisheries of Viet Nam,
Hanoi, Technical Cooperation Project TCP/VIE/2907, 98 pp.
Butcher, John G. 2004. The Closing of the Frontier: A History of the marine fisheries of
Southeast Asia c.1850-2000. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore,
442 pp.
Everett, G.V. 1974. Some economic and social aspects of fisheries development in south Thailand.
Paper presented at the 1974 IPFC Technical Symposium on Economics and social aspects
of national fisheries planning and development.
FAO. 2000. The Republic of Indonesia: FAO Fisheries Country Profile, FAO, Rome.
FAO. 2004. Fisheries data, Information and Statistics Unit, Fishstat plus, universal software for
fisheries statistical time series, version 2.3, Rome.
FAO. 2005a. The Philippines: FAO fisheries country profile, FAO, Rome.
FAO. 2005b. Viet Nam: FAO fisheries country profile, FAO, Rome.
FAO. 2005c. Cambodia: FAO fisheries country profile, FAO, Rome.
FAO/Fishcode. 2004. Report of the National Conference on Responsible Fisheries in Viet Nam,
FAO/FishCode Review number 9, Rome, FAO, 94 pp.
Green, S.J., Flores, J.O., Dizon-Corrales, J.Q., Martinez, R.T., Nunal, D.R.M., Armada, N.B. &
White, A.T. 2004. The fisheries of Central Visayas, Philippines: Status and trend. Coastal
Resource Management Project of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources
and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources of the Department of Agriculture, Cebu
City, Philippines. 159pp.
Nagalaksana, C. 1987. Thailand country experience, Papers presented at the 1987 IPFC Technical
Symposium Exploitation & management of the marine fishery resources in SE Asia.

27
Pramokchutima, S. & Vadhanakul, S. 1987. The use of artificial reefs as a tool for fisheries
management in Thailand Papers presented at the 1987 IPFC technical symposium
Exploitation & management of the marine fishery resources in SE Asia.
Silvestre, G., Federizon, R., Muoz, J. & Pauly, D. 1987. Over exploitation of the demersal
resources of Manila Bay and adjacent areas. Papers presented at the 1987 IPFC technical
symposium Exploitation & management of the marine fishery resources in SE Asia.
Sugiyama, S., Staples, D. & Funge-Smith, S.J. 2004. Status and potential of fisheries and
aquaculture in Asia and the Pacific. FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. RAP
Publication 2004/25. 53 pp.
Suvapepun, S. 1996. Environmental aspects of responsible fisheries of the Gulf of Thailand.
Paper presented at the 1996 APFIC Technical Symposium on Environmental aspects of
responsible fisheries.
Wildlife Fund Thailand website http://www.wildlifefund.or.th/16_Camp/dfg_eng_1.html
Zaragosa, E.C., Pagdilao, C.R. & Moreno, E.P. 2004. Fisheries for tuna and other large pelagic
fishes. pp.3841. In: Department of Agriculture Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic
Resources, 2004, turbulent seas: The status of Philippine marine fisheries. Coastal Resource
Management Project, Cebu City, the Philippines. 378pp.

28